Belichick on Longevity

[pencilneckgeek]

Reiss: Belichick on Longevity, Continuity

BB is an interesting man. I can't believe that journalists waste his time with the routine questions that they know he won't answer, when you can get this sort of quote out of him, if you ask the right question:

"I feel a loyalty to all the people that are in the organization. And I'm not saying I'm great or anything, that's not the point. The point is that when you're the head coach, there are a lot of people that are dependent on you," he said.

"Having been an assistant coach for a long time, and been the son of an assistant coach for a long time, you know that your future is, to a certain degree, tied to the head coach. It's important to me to be able to hopefully provide some stability to the other members of the coaching staff and other members of the organization that relate to the football department, the players.

"We all know that the first thing that changes is the coach [and] the next thing that changes is most of the roster. I certainly like the fact that we have players that have been brought up in this system, that have tried to develop in this system, and hopefully they have the confidence to know that they can come back and play in this system again with the skills and the training and the knowledge that they've learned to do it. I feel a loyalty to them and I think they also feel a loyalty to me along those same lines. It's a two-way street.

"I know everybody has got to take care of themselves and their own needs and all that [but] I do have a lot of loyalty and respect for the people who work for me and I want to try to continue to provide a good working environment for them to be successful, for us to be successful, so we can all benefit from that.

"So yeah, I would say that's definitely important to me and that's the way I was brought up."

It would be interesting to ask him how he balances that approach with the need to objectively evaluate and turn-over the roster with regularity, whether that approach makes it harder to cut veteran players, and how he approaches situations where players are on the wrong end of that process and question how much loyalty really is a two-way street. (Of couse, that would be getting into territory where the answer might not be as satisfactory.)

 

[Canuck]

Reiss: Belichick on Longevity, Continuity

BB is an interesting man. I can't believe that journalists waste his time with the routine questions that they know he won't answer, when you can get this sort of quote out of him, if you ask the right question:



It would be interesting to ask him how he balances that approach with the need to objectively evaluate and turn-over the roster with regularity, whether that approach makes it harder to cut veteran players, and how he approaches situations where players are on the wrong end of that process and question how much loyalty really is a two-way street. (Of couse, that would be getting into territory where the answer might not be as satisfactory.)

A BB quote on cutting players "Whether the players are veterans or rookies, informing them of their release is “the hardest part of the job,” Belichick said. “It’s the hardest part of the job to take players that have played for you, won for you, and players that have been with us since the spring, the whole offseason, done everything we asked them to do, worked hard, sweated, been banged up, kept going out there, kept playing, kept trying to do everything they could to make the team. To tell those players they can’t be a part of the team is very difficult.

“On the other hand, we all know when we get into this business that that’s the way it’s going to be. A lot of coaches, including myself, have been through that. A lot of players have been through that. It’s a production business. There’s not too many of us who have been in this game for very long that haven’t experienced that in some form or fashion. It’s part of the business.

“It’s not a great, real happy day as a head coach when you have to give that news to any players, really, certainly those guys, but any players. You could exchange names, but you’re still affecting somebody’s life and somebody’s career and basically somebody who has worked hard and given all that they can to try and earn a spot on your team. It’s disappointing for them and it’s not fun to deliver that news.”